Testimonial given at Community Report Event on June 8, 2004

by a single mother who completed the RentWise Program

My guess is the RentWise Program was founded with the intention of transforming the minds of tenants with a rental history such as my own. And it has done just that. I only regret that this program wasn’t made available when I was 18.

At 18, only a few months after high school graduation, my two children and I moved into my very first apartment. Back then you could say my motto was “Always bite off more than you can chew.” I didn’t meet the requirements to assume a lease on my own. I asked a co-worker who I didn’t know very well to co-sign. She ended up with $3,000 in debt. If RentWise had been around I might have known what to do when I came home from work and found my apartment infested with roaches. Escrow was a foreign term to me. I packed my bags in the middle of the night so to speak, and found a newer, cleaner, shinier and more expensive place to stay.

If RentWise had been available to me I might have known the appropriate way to end my lease.

But by God’s grace I hadn’t become homeless yet. My grandmother owns three houses; she leased me the house she and my grandfather raised my mother and aunt in. By then I had been two years at one of our nation’s largest auto manufacturer, Delphi Packard Electric. My money was good and the creditors knew it. I applied for three credit cards and had $400 a week coming in. And typically I spend all but $20 of it on everything but bills.

If RentWise had of been around I might have known something about what a credit report should mean to me. I didn’t know if my debtors (creditors) had posted my debt to the bureau or my next five landlords just needed the money. But I managed to move five more times before I became homeless. If RentWise had been around I might have known before I moved around so much trying to find “home” how to find a good one – what a good home looks like.

Thanks to RentWise being available to me now at this point in my life, I am able to pull myself out of the ditch I dug!

Thank you to the University of Minnesota Extension Service of Dakota County RentWise Program and to God for giving me the integrity to use what RentWise has given me.